Sunday, January 04, 2009

Calvin 3

I edited this post because John has since explained to me that he intended to use a mixture of dynamic equivalence and formal equivalence to compare the Latin and the French of the first few passages of Calvin's Intutitutes. When the dynamic equivalent passages were compared, and an additional factor of dropped words, and added metaphors were added in, the comparison between the two was lost in the English, at least to my eyes. I simply did not recognize how he was revealing differences in the original structures.

On the other hand, when I am comparing the Latin of Jerome and Pagnini, I take a completely opposite approach and begin with an extremely literal word for word translation in order to reveal the differences and demonstrate the contrasting vocabulary. Words are less likely to be dropped in this case, as I compare each word in turn. This creates an awkard working translation which is what I am aiming at.

It happens that John had an entirely different and equally valid goal in mind. Sometimes two different people approach a task in contrasting ways.

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